https://odb.org/2024/02/02/deep-friendship
I can see in the lives of my sons that time needs to be invested to build friendships. They do take time off to just chill and hang out with different groups of friends, and while they may have more time and energy in their youth, it is inevitable that time needs to be invested. Because yesterday was a holiday, my younger son drove up with his friends in two cars to the highlands to just breathe in the cool air and have a meal.
But once our careers take off and we start to put in 50 to 60-hour work weeks, it gets increasingly difficult to spend time to build friendships. This will be compounded if we have settled down and have children at home. So friendships are then cultivated at work since we spend so much time in the office.
Experts recommend that we should instead cultivate friendships outside of work. I read this somewhere before, and it makes sense. This is because friendships at work are mostly lost once we or our friends leave the workplace for another job. Even lawyers who often meet in the corridors of courts will drift apart once they go in-house and become part of the corporate world.
For our spiritual lives and ministry, we should cultivate deep friendships with our brethren. To serve as a check and balance, an indirect spiritual accountability mechanism. I think we will likely behave better as believers if we have close friends in the faith. At least we will not readily compromise our faith and spiritual principles out of respect for our friends, or we try our best to grow in spiritual maturity together rather than be left behind.
But such friendships should be cultivated out of church. If not, we will be hanging out in church only, and that is at most a couple of hours a week among a sea of people. To develop genuine life-long friendships like that of David and Jonathan, we need to invest time. A time to share our lives and challenges and aspirations, to open up, even in our struggles in the faith. We should chill over a meal, a cup of coffee, or open up our homes. Or even indulge in some hobbies together. There is more to life than just work, family, and church. Friendships built in the faith will help us run the race in the long run.
This will not be easy if we are in the habit of withdrawing to our homes after work. But when I see the younger ones make such efforts, I think everyone should do likewise. Let’s invest time and effort to cultivate deep friendships in Christ.
Ronnie's Thoughts 